


Heartburn

by ClockworkSampi



Series: Sampi's Underfell Theatre [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkSampi/pseuds/ClockworkSampi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk and Flowey followed Toriel down the purple stone hallway towards the Door To The Rest Of The Underground. Frisk had to leave, but they were Determined not to bring down this nice, if slightly demented, woman in the process.</p>
<p>And what’s more, is that they had a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartburn

**Author's Note:**

> So this week was super busy and I went borderline insane in completing it. So in order to pull me back from my spiral of insanity, I asked my wonderful beta reader for suggestions on something super quick I could write.
> 
> They suggested something with Underfell.
> 
> I said, Underfell, huh? I’ll see what I can do.
> 
> Fast forward about four hours, and apparently the answer is this.
> 
> Don't take this too seriously. This is basically just the literary equivalent of a pencil sketch, but, who knows, you might enjoy it, regardless.

In hindsight, Frisk should have known there was no way this wouldn’t work. Flowey still managed to be skeptical, even though they both had read the crumpled up diary pages. No one simply stops liking bad puns, and, more importantly, no one who so sincerely enjoys terrible jokes could ever murder a child. The world just wouldn’t be right if that could happen.

 

“Whoa, Toriel. This is getting a little heated, don’t you think?” said Frisk, sidestepping a fireball. Flowey, coiled around their arm, pressed against them as it careened by.

 

“Please, child. Please, just stand still,” Toriel’s voice sounded uneven. “I promise this will be painless. Much better than what Asgore will do to you.”

 

“You don’t have to do this. You said you always wanted to be a teacher, right? You’ve got to have more class than this.”

 

Toriel clenched her quivering fist. Fire roared around it.

 

“I know I do not have to,” she said brusquely. “I am doing this because I care about you. Understand? Now, please. This will not hurt, I promise.”

 

Frisk backflipped over the ensuing fire wall.

 

“I don’t know, Frisk,” said Flowey, nervously eyeing the fire filling the room. “I think she just has that many problems.”

 

Toriel took a deep breath and said, in what she probably thought was a helpful tone:

 

“If it helps you be at peace, just think of this like…a visit to the dentist.”

 

“It really doesn’t,” said Frisk. “Sorry, but I’ve been to the dentist enough times to know the drill.”

 

“Ah,” said Flowey knowledgably. “I can photo-sympathize. Dentists always make my roots ache.”

 

Toriel blinked and gave the two a stiff, calculating stare. It was a look Frisk knew all too well. They had seen it too many times. Some things, it seemed, were a cultural constant.

 

“That expression you’re wearing,” they said, as if from a script. “That’s the expression of someone asking the question, ‘did I just hear that correctly?’ And yes, you did. I knew you still had some punderstanding left in you.”

 

The snap back was felt before it was seen. Toriel’s entire body tensed inexorably, and flames eructed all around her. They splashed apart on the walls. Embers dripped down from the ceiling. The ground underneath Frisk’s soles became charred. Toriel towered above the inferno like an executioner queen.

 

Frisk merengued out of the line of fire.

 

“Fight me or die!” wailed Toriel, but, and it may have been a trick of the heat haze, Frisk could have sworn they saw her eyes gleaming oddly.

 

“I think she’s punishing us, Frisk.”

 

“Well, Flowey, it’s like they always say: a good pun is its own re-word.”

 

“Stop saying these things!” screamed Toriel.

 

Fire was now beginning to bleed through the corners of the room. Toriel made frantic patterns with her burning palms. Fireballs ricocheted off of everything ricochet-able.

 

“I am trying to save you! This is your only fate with the monsters! Please, my child, why do you refuse to end peacefully?”

 

“I guess because I never practiced ending peacefully,” said Frisk, doing several 360° boneless flips through the blazes. “There aren’t many teachers on it on the Surface.”

 

“Golly! You mean it’s a dying discipline?” Flowey chimed, unsteadily.

 

“Exactly. No one’s really dead-icated enough.”

 

Toriel stared at them with a meticulously blank expression, took a step back, and pressed her back against the Door To The Rest Of The Underground. Her breathing sounded as if it was slipping on ice.

 

Frisk found themselves standing in a cool ring of purple stone, conspicuously absent of fire.

 

They glanced up at the slightly blurred figure.

 

“Toriel, can I ask you a question?”

 

Toriel avoided Frisk’s eyes.

 

“I know you think I’ll be terminated out there. But don’t you think I’ve proven I have enough De-termination to make it out?”

 

Flowey watched as Toriel, unseeing eyes dim with reflected hellfire, raised a hesitating hand, and rapped her knuckles on the Door. It boomed over the snarl of the flames.

 

“…knock…knock…?”

 

“Who’s there?” sang Frisk.

 

“…old lady.”

 

“Old lady who?”

 

“Oh!” Toriel quavered. “I did not know you could yodel!”

 

Frisk chuckled, like one who had been told a knock-knock joke by a person trying to kill them, but they were drowned out as Toriel doubled over in ear splitting howls of laughter. Flowey observed this.

 

Like magic, the room was instantly void of fire.

 

Flowey scrutinized Toriel as she fell down on her hands and knees in a fit of gulping breaths, laughing like he knew she hadn’t done in years.

 

Then she raised her head, tears making tentative trails down her cheeks, and smiled deliriously at Frisk and Flowey like a dull, yellowing sawblade.

 

“I know you want to go home, but…”

 

\-----

 

The corridor Frisk and Flowey entered echoed their footsteps like an external heartbeat. Frost began snake its way across the walls. Frisk’s breath became visible.

 

Flowey sniffed the air for the smell of burning ozone. He listened for the sound of furious running. He glanced back and waited for her to appear.

 

She didn’t.

 

He didn’t look at Frisk. He didn’t need to. He could _feel_ the expression of smug blankness.

 

“Okay. You know what? Fine,” he said, feeling required to say something. “ _Maybe_ you were right. Maybe she wasn’t trying to trick us into dropping our guard for a surprise attack. Maybe I didn’t need to kill her the first time. Maybe she really does intend to let us go. Heck, maybe she actually does think you can make it past Asgore. _Maybe she’s decent_.”

 

Frisk cupped their hands over their nose and breathed, then stuck their hands under their armpits.

 

“But don’t you dare think she’s the rule,” Flowey continued. “That was the exception, you hear me? Any other monster would have vaporized you the second you tuned your back! Every _single_ monster in the Underground _will_ do their damnedest to kill you!”

 

A beam of light shone down from the Surface on a small patch of grass. It ruffled as Frisk stepped through it.

 

“You we able to play by your rules this time, and I am so, so glad you could. I mean that sincerely. But it won’t last! Frisk, they’ll kill you over and over and over if you don’t Fight back! Frisk, do you understand me?!”

 

Frisk put their weight on the Door Out Of The Ruins, which opened with the sound of an ancient crypt. They went through, and The Door slammed shut behind them.

 

“Your Mercy won’t last, Frisk! In this world, it’s kill or be killed. It won’t last, I can guarantee it.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked what you read, please consider commissioning me to write for you, it'll help me out a lot!: http://clockworksampi.tumblr.com/post/146010687102/sampis-commission-information
> 
> Fun Fact: I had never heard of Underfell before my amazing beta reader suggested this.
> 
> The Undefell AU was not made by me. You can find more information on it here: http://underfell.tumblr.com/


End file.
